1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to volume reduction in communication networks and more particularly, to a volume reduction that takes into account the quality of the data flowing through the communication network.
2. Discussion of the Related Art
Communication networks usually include sources of the data such as meters and sensor, nodes connecting the physical links, and targets to which the data finally reaches. In modern communication networks (e.g., smart grids), some of the nodes constituting the network, may either consume or transform some of the data flowing through them. As in traditional networks, bandwidth capacity of the physical links imposes a strict constraint on the data flowing in the network. Volume reduction is usually necessary in order to meet the infrastructural constraints. Additionally, other constrains such as data priority and latency lead to various volume reduction policies.
Volume reduction in currently available communication networks focuses on determining the appropriate initial flow rate at the source, under the assumption that by controlling the data flow rate at its source, all the constraints along the flow from the source to the target, will be adequately met. This approach leads to constant data rates along the flows which is less than optimal in many cases where the nodes along the flow may either consume some of the data or transform it to a different format. As is the case in modern communication network, the quality of the data, which may be different for each node, may serve as an important parameter in determining volume reduction in order to reach optimal allocation of the physical infrastructure of the communication network.
Thus, smart grids create a new traffic engineering challenge. On one hand, massive data flows are originated, requiring a volume reduction process in order to be transmitted over the network. Naturally, the volume of a stream will decrease the accuracy of its data. On the other hand, intermediate nodes run applications that require a certain quality of the data. Thus, the volume reduction carried out over the network should take into consideration both network resources and application data quality requirements. As discussed above, these requirements stand in contrast to traditional traffic design models that assume each flow is allocated a single fixed rate, as constrained by bottleneck link capacities. Currently, no traffic planning solution is known to address objectives regarding to both network utilization and application-aware volume reduction.